Lol, he started saying "the ball comes nicely onto the bat" right from that time.

Originally Posted by OverratedSanity

"Still waiting for bole trekking Marayyye". Keep Kumar up in the third umpires box please,its hilarious. Him almost screwing up a DRS referral a definite highlight.

Originally Posted by Burgey

Ashwin is like one of those paintings whose eye always follows you around the room. He'd be hell in a court room. The judge and the witness would always think he's lookong at both of them at the same time.

S.Africans; they just don't get their deserved respect for some reason.

Agree with you so much on this (especially for fast bowlers), and this is true across generations.

South Africa has produced amazing fast bowlers right from the 60's. Neil Adcock, Allan Donald and Mike Procter are the first three names that come to mind. And besides, there have been the likes of Dale Steyn, Peter Pollock, Shaun Pollock. All of them have had outstanding records and were considered greats of the game by those who played with or against them. But how many of them make a place too often in an all-time list? Donald sometimes, maybe. I guess most of these bowlers deserve at least a consideration for such lists.

Same for the great Saffie alrounders Clive Rice and Mike Procter (and Jacques Kallis too, though he has been more of a batting alrounder). Everyone who've seen them at their prime know that they stand in the same league as the likes of Imran, Botham, Kapil, Hadlee; and actually might have been even better than at least some of them. Mike Procter was definitely the best player in the world for a period. And it's not that they didn't succeed against the best of players. They bowled to, and batted against some of the greatests of the game with immense success. Still!

"Cricket is an art. Like all arts it has a technical foundation. To enjoy it does not require technical knowledge, but analysis that is not technically based is mere impressionism."
- C.L.R. James

It was sometime in mid 2006. And if I recall correctly he had had an unsuccessful surgery earlier on, soon after he acquired the condition, as well.

To be completely fair, Sachin himself said it did not hamper his batting in any way during that time... I would just take it as a dip in form that just about every cricketer has had. Excuses like that belie the great man, coz I am pretty sure he will never pay when he is feeling he can't give his best. Let's face it, India of the mid noughties was not the Wndies of late 90s or since... It was not like everything was dependant on Sachin.

I seriously do think that having some other batsmen blossom around him has made Sachin a lot freer towards his own game... He really seems to be enjoying his cricket since 2001 when you can say the fab 4 arrived, as an entity by themselves... And with more wins and more of a climb in the ranking, it really seems to be spurring him on to better deeds. I think his renaissance also has something to do with the fact that India were now seriously moving ahead in the rankings (not exactly the ICC rankings, but in the general perception of the cricketing world)... You just saw how much all this means to him yesterday after he hit the winning runs. He, more than anyone else, has always pointed out how much TEAM SUCCESS means to him and the numbers show that he is not kidding..

We miss you, Fardin. :(. RIP.

Originally Posted by vic_orthdox

In the end, I think it's so utterly, incomprehensibly boring. There is so much context behind each innings of cricket that dissecting statistics into these small samples is just worthless. No-one has ever been faced with the same situation in which they come out to bat as someone else. Ever.

On that - fair enough. Would Ponting figure in your top 3 players against spin? Or top 5? Or top 10?

Despite the fact that I've not really seen Ponting dominate spin bowling like Lara and Tendulkar; he still has an excellent record against spin bowlers - averaging 50 in matches against Murali is no fluke. Probably isn't amongst the best pure players of spin bowlers of all-time but is probably amongst the best in the all-time bat stakes.